TO THE POOR IN SPIRIT. 2":37 a scorpion to us, because we will needs make them our petty dei- ties? We have less comfort in them than else we ¡night have, be- cause we must needs have more thanwe should have. You might have more faithfulness from your friends, 'more reputation in the world, more sweetness in all your present enjoyments, ifyou looked for less. Why is it that you can scarce name a creature near you, that is not a scourge to you, but because you can scarce name one that is not your idol, or at least which you do not expect more from than you ought? Nay, (which is one of the saddest consider- ations of this kind that can be imagined,) God is fain to scourge us most even by the highest professors of religion, because we have most idolized them, and had such excessive expectations from them. One would have thought it next to an impossibility, that such men, and somany of them, could ever havebeen drawn to do that against the church, against that gospel-ministry and 'ordinances Of God, (which once seemed dearer to them than their lives,) which bath since been done; and which yet we fear. But a believing eye can discern the reason of this sad providence in part., Never men Were more idolized, and therefore no wonder if were never so afflicted by any. Alas, when will we learn by scripture and provi- dence so to know God and the' creature, as to look for far more fromhim, and'less from them ! We have looked for wonders from Scotland, and what is come of it? We looked that war should have even satisfied our desires, and when it had removed all visible im- pediments, we thought we should have 'had such aglorious refor- -mation'as the world never knew ! And now, behold a Babel, and a mangled deformation! What high expectations had we from an assembly !' 'What expectations from a parliament ! And where are they now? O hear the word of the Lord, ye low-spirited people !" " Cease ye from :man; whose breath is in his nostrils ; for wherein is hë to be accounted of Isa.'ii. 22. " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord; for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and, shall not see when good cometh. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is ; for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,'t' &c. Jer. xvii. 5 -8. "' Surely men of low degree are vanity ; and men of ltigh degree are a lie. To be laid in the .balance they are altogether'lighterthan Vanity." Psal. lxii. 9. Let me warn you all, for the time to. come, to take the creature As a creature ; 'remember its frailty ; look for no more from it than its part. If you have the nearest, dearest, godly friends, expect to feel the sting of their corruptions, as well as to taste the sweetness of their grace. And theymust expect the like fromyou. Ifyou ask me why I speak so much of these thing, here ? It is,
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